The Toronto International Film Festival is facing growing pressure over its inaugural City to City spotlight on Tel Aviv, with one week to go before the red carpet is rolled out on Sept. 10.

More that 50 filmmakers, artists and writers have signed an open letter to TIFF protesting its decision to showcase the Israeli city and its filmmakers, saying that the program shows TIFF has become ‘complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine,’ whether intentionally or not.

Among the high-profile signatures on the list are thesps Jane Fonda, Danny Glover, British filmmaker Ken Loach, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker and musician David Byrne.

‘This program ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants of the Tel Aviv/Jaffa area who currently live in refugee camps in the occupied territories or who have been dispersed to other countries,’ say the signatories, who compared the program to a celebration of apartheid-era South Africa.

The protest follows Canadian filmmaker John Greyson’s decision last week to pull his documentary Covered from the festival – citing concern at the timing of the program, following the Gaza massacre of eight months ago. Greyson insisted that his protest is not against the films or filmmakers, but against the spotlight as a whole.

Among the 10 films in the City to City program are Niv Klainer’s Bena, Ephraim Kishon’s Big Dig and Raphael Nadjari’s A History of Israeli Cinema Part 1 and 2.

TIFF says it is not offering comment beyond festival co-director Cameron Bailey’s letter, posted on its website last week, in which he expressed disappointment at Greyson’s decision to withdraw his film, adding, ‘We recognize that Tel Aviv is not a simple choice and that the city remains contested ground.’